When I got up on Friday it was clear that the race was not going very well: we were sailing really slowly, our promised comeback had come to nothing and we were still 130 miles from the Isle of Wight. So I was not surprised when later in the day we got the news that the race would end at 18:00 UTC and we would then motor to the final destination.
Since we had not much hopes that our position could really improve we spent all afternoon looking at all the drama that was happening in front of us, with a frantic fight to decide who would be the winner of the global race. We could see some of the boats on the AIS (that's the automatic system that transmits the position of your boat to the surrounding vessels), but not all, so it was all very suspenseful.
Then the time to finish the race arrived and we did a huge celebration on deck with everyone jumping, dancing, shouting and hugging each other. You could specially see the happiness in the faces of the round the worlders, they were ecstatic. They all tied up together using the tethers of the life jackets and tried to move around the boat as a group, passing under the traveller. It was hilarious. All in all it was an awesome celebration, one of my happiest times on board.
We then spent all night motoring at high speed towards the Isle of Wight while down below everyone started to pack and get their things ready while we also did a bit of general cleaning. We also learned that the final winner was Ha Long Bay, so congratulations to its crew and their skipper and first mate.
When we finally arrived, we spent some time with each boat passing near the other boats to congratulate each other for our achievement and also to applaud the race winners. We also spent some time near the spectator boats, listening to their cheering, having fun and chanting with them.
All the boats then formed a line and we all motored together towards the finish line. This is the part that we were supposed to do as a mini race but which was cancelled due to the lack of wind. It is a shame we did not get to do this final race as I think that we would have all enjoyed it, but at the same time this parade was quite relaxed and allowed us to continue in a high spirit.
After officially passing the final line, with the first boat being received with a cannon blast from Suhaili, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's boat, we spent a little while waiting and then we finally started the final parade of sail. It was awesome, we came into Portsmouth harbour being led by a huge ferry followed by a couple of tugboats using their hoses to create two arcs of water and then the eleven boats in formation. Brilliant!!
There was a huge amount of people cheering from the shore and this included my wife Puri and my son Leo who welcomed us from the top of the Round Tower. It was wonderful to finally be able to see them and wave to them after such a long time being apart.
After the parade and a bit of waiting we were finally able to dock into Portsmouth harbour. The welcome was nice but I have fonder memories of our welcome into Oban. It's probably because at this point what I wanted more than anything was to be able to meet my wife and son and hug them but supporters were not allowed into the pontoon so I had to be satisfied with waving to them from a distance. Participants in other legs of the race were allowed into the pontoon so it was great to see people like Rod, Lisette, Luís or Nanne welcoming us.
After an exasperating wait we finally started our parade to the stage and I was finally able to properly hug my wife and son. We were all incredibly happy to be finally reunited after all this time. We then got on stage and we gave it all: dancing like crazy, speeches, champagne shower, chanting. They had to push us out of the stage!! Punta is surely the winner when celebrating.
We then all went our separate ways to spend some time with friends and family, get our things from the boat and relax a little. A couple of hours later we started to get together in bars and restaurants to celebrate, with our crew split in two or three groups but keeping in touch and celebrating. I was quite tired because I had slept very little in the last 24 hours, so we left early after saying highly emotional goodbyes to all my crew mates.
So now I am home, really happy to finally have been able to live my dream of crossing an ocean and really happy to have been able to share this time with such an amazing group of people, hoping that we'll keep in touch and hoping that some of us will become friends for life.
